


to be known

by Hymn



Series: just words - a shance soulmate au [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Casual Racism, Coming Out, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Shiro has a crush, Side Story, Soulmate AU, and a new friend, bros being surprise bros, i don't know what else to tag for lol, mild anxiety attack, soulmate angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 10:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14999417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hymn/pseuds/Hymn
Summary: “Ohh,” said a voice knowingly from over his shoulder. “Another Montgomery fan, huh?”Heart leaping into his mouth, Shiro strangled a yelp so that it came out -- embarrassingly -- as a squeak, and fumbled his phone so badly that it clattered to the floor at his feet. He stared at it for a moment, barely breathing, and the scrape of his chair as he pushed back to reach beneath the desk was so loud Shiro thought for sure everyone would be staring at him when he came back up.For a moment, he thought very seriously about staying under there forever.(or, Richard Montgomery is gay and beautiful, Shiro is smitten and terrified, and Isaac is chill af)





	to be known

**Author's Note:**

> ch3 is being written, but the only way i could write it without it being too many words of richard -- it _is_ a shance fic, after all -- was to start writing side stories. this is the first one i have planned that correlate in some way or another with richard and shiro's relationship. 
> 
> hope you enjoy; incredibly sorry if you don't, i'm not entirely certain what happened here -- it fucking wrote itself :|

The very first time that Shiro became aware of Richard Montgomery’s existence was when someone sighed out, “Isn’t he just so _handsome_?” while in line at lunch. 

He wasn’t actually listening; the day had started out poorly, Shiro waking up with red magic marker on the tip of his nose that his concealer could only _just_ soften, so that it looked instead like Shiro was coming out with a massive pimple. More than a few of his classmates had remarked upon it, teasing, and every time Shiro had had to hold in his flinch, fearful, because no, _no_ , it was just his stupid soulmate being a _child_ , and --

Disgusted, Shiro shuffled along with his tray as the line moved, trying to decide if he wanted the disgusting mashed potatoes or the equally disgusting but slightly less mushy french fries, when someone else responded with, “He is, but you can give it up, now. He’s gay.”

“I knoooow,” whined the first girl, “But that doesn’t change _fact_. That boy is _hot_.” 

...What.

Stabbing desperately at the french fries with metal tongs, Shiro glanced in front of him -- two cadets a year ahead of him, not in the pilot class. No one he knew. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t seem to get the damned tongs to work right; they kept clattering against the tray and he was dropping french fries, and --

“It’s like my mom always says,” the second girl laughed, bright and easy, “all the best men are either married or gay!”

“Richard Montgomery, how dare you be such an unattainable heart throb!”

... _What._

* * *

The class he had immediately after lunch was little more than a blur, a steady drone that must have been his teacher lecturing from the front of the hall; the scrape of chalk on the board making Shiro’s arm hairs stand on end; the sea of people around him faceless and merciless, so that Shiro felt surrounded, pressed in on all sides, trapped.

Shiro was fifteen, not quite sixteen, and had told precisely one person that he was gay.

And that had been -- _wrong_ , the wrong choice, he knew that. Had known immediately. Because you didn’t _talk_ about that. You didn’t admit it like it meant nothing, not when it meant so much, not when it could -- could _ruin_ things. It wasn’t --

The thing that bothered Shiro so much was the way the two girls had been speaking. Careless. Loud. Without rancor. Even their complaints had seemed almost... light hearted? Was that the word? As if it didn’t matter at all that Richard Montgomery was -- _was_ \--

Shiro swallowed hard, palms clammy, and made himself think it -- _gay_ , Richard Montgomery was gay.

Like him.

It seemed -- _surreal_. That there was someone else like him, here, at a military academy destined to send people up into space. And that was stupid, because the last expedition to Mars had been manned by Commander Daphne Herrera and her wife, Chief Science Officer Katerina Herrera. 

They had celebrated their ten year wedding anniversary on Martian soil. 

And it had been broadcast live, their hands clasped and helmets carefully touching as they spoke anew their vows to each other. Shiro remembered watching it on the couch between his mother and father, heart _pounding_ , so amazed and terrified and _jealous_.

But it -- just because it was accepted _here_ , or partially, didn’t mean that --

_“Don’t you think Ayaka-chan is pretty, Takashi?”_

\-- everyone was of the same view, or that --

_“I think I like boys.”_

\-- every society was so open. Europe, he had heard, was even more accepting than North America, and Shiro had nearly walked into a building the first time he’d gone out to the city near the Garrison one weekend and seen two men holding hands in broad daylight.

If that had happened at _home_ , well... 

_Would it make a difference?_ he wondered, suddenly; _if I had told her that I -- that I have a soulmate, and that they are -- have to be -- must be! -- a boy, like me?_

He didn’t think so. His mother was set in her ways -- about soulmates, about being gay -- and the path she supported was clear, at least to Shiro: choose the _right_ way. Forget the soulmate -- forget the boy -- be like the rest of the world; fall in love the _normal_ way.

Shiro closed his eyes. It was a struggle to breathe, but somehow he did it.

He spent the rest of class trying not to think about it. Trying not to be obvious, feeling like everyone in the world could look at him right then and be able to see immediately that he was thinking about it. Thinking about being -- like _that_.

But no matter how he tried he couldn’t stop.

 _Richard Montgomery_ , he wondered; _does he know they know? Did he tell them? How does it --_

How did it feel, he wondered, to be _known_.

* * *

Richard Montgomery was seventeen and a third year in the Communications Department. His family had money and status, apparently -- his dad a lawyer in New York, his mother still working for the Galaxy Garrison as an alumni, hosting charity events and fundraisers at places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had a younger sister and two uncles. He had a dog named Sir Barksalot that he took a lot of pictures of and posted to social media.

He was openly gay.

He was also frustratingly beautiful. Shiro glared at his phone and the picture there -- a handsome teenage boy with big brown eyes, a wide, pink-mouthed smile, and the kind of casual good looks that seemed entirely unfair. Sir Barksalot was licking Richard Montgomery’s chin and Richard Montgomery was trying not to laugh, and --

_How dare you be such an unattainable heart throb!_

“Ohh,” said a voice knowingly from over his shoulder. “Another Montgomery fan, huh?”

Heart leaping into his mouth, Shiro strangled a yelp so that it came out -- embarrassingly -- as a squeak, and fumbled his phone so badly that it clattered to the floor at his feet. He stared at it for a moment, barely breathing, and the scrape of his chair as he pushed back to reach beneath the desk was so loud Shiro thought for sure everyone would be staring at him when he came back up.

For a moment, he thought very seriously about staying under there forever.

“ _Dude_ ,” said Isaac. “You all right? Be a bitch if your screen cracked.”

Shiro forced himself back up, settling gingerly into his seat, but sideways, so he could almost make eye-contact with the cadet who sat in the row behind him. _Stupid_ , it had been stupid to look at this -- _him_ \-- so blatantly. Shiro opened his mouth, but his tongue felt clumsy and helpless, like any words he could dredge up would be wrong, nails to tap neatly into the lid of his coffin.

“Er --”

“Oh, hey --” Isaac stopped, and Shiro dared a flinch of a glance at him to see that he’d cracked a yawn; he was slumped back in his seat, a big, bulky sort of guy with a buzzed head. He seemed utterly unperturbed. Shiro...

Shiro wasn’t certain _what_ to think.

“-- there’s a game after classes today. Just for fun, a bunch of the older students made teams. Want to go watch with me?”

“...Basketball?”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “No, numb-nuts. If it was basketball you’d know already, wouldn’t you? Soccer, I think. Uh. Football? F _uut_ ball? I don’t know, what do you Chinese usually call it --”

“I’m Japanese,” Shiro said, mildly. “And sure, I’ll go. What time?”

“1700. Meet you in front of Brist Hall, then.”

Absently, Shiro nodded, and then turned back in his seat and -- well, just sat there. His phone was pressed between his hand and his thigh, gone dark. It wasn’t cracked. Nothing had -- nothing had _happened_. Or seemed to happen. Maybe Isaac didn’t know? Maybe he hadn’t guessed --

Shiro focused on breathing, on -- _anything_ , just trying not to think too hard before he gave himself a headache, thoughts flying in circles, wondering, fearing, it -- just, _ugh_.

He really, really wished his damned heart would calm the fuck down.

* * *

Isaac definitely knew.

“Mm,” he said, nodding when Shiro stopped dead, mouth agape. “Did I forget to tell you? Your boy’s here. If you’re going to talk about how nice his hair is, though, I’m going to stop you now. I don’t give a fuck what you’re into, but I don’t actually want to hear about it. At all.”

“Uh...”

Isaac huffed, annoyed, and beckoned him over to where there were bleachers set up around a grassy field. “I have to hear it enough from my big sis, okay?” Isaac grimaced. “ _Ohhh_ ,” he continued in a deadpan falsetto, “ _Rebecca’s hair is so silky, I just want to bathe in it every day. I want to sniff and pet it and braid it and_ \-- Ugh, romance is dumb.”

Shiro didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know what to do. He fumbled for the correct response -- _I’m not_ \-- but he couldn’t seem to find the words. He felt cold, and the world felt huge, and --

A whistle blew.

The game started.

For a moment, Shiro was safe. He was safe, but he _wasn’t_ , because Richard Montgomery in person was possibly even more charismatic than Richard Montgomery on screen -- and he was very, very photogenic and charming on screen. Shiro barely saw the game. Instead, he saw the way that Richard tipped his head back when he laughed, loud and free; the way he lifted his shirt to wipe sweat off his face, revealing the jut of his hip bones; the way he shoved shoulders companionably with his team mates and hollered good natured ribbing to the other team; he --

Shiro swallowed, _hard_ , because there were butterflies in his stomach.

“Man,” Isaac said, mouth twitching. “You’ve got it _bad_.”

It was dusk; crickets were chirping, or maybe they were mosquitoes buzzing. Shiro didn’t know. He didn’t know what the damned score was, either, he --

“Shut up,” he said, voice low and hard. He tucked his chin down, shoulders up, and stared straight ahead at the path he and Isaac were walking, back to their dorm. 

“Look, I’m just saying,” Isaac continued, easy. “This may be my new strategy to get first in class. Distract you with pretty blonde b--”

If asked later, Shiro wouldn’t be able to tell when he first moved. When his brain had snapped and made the decision to turn and fist his fingers in Isaac’s shirt and haul him close, and snarl, “ _I’m not gay_.”

Isaac froze, mouth going flat and hard, eyes narrowed. “You --”

“I’m _not_ ,” Shiro hissed, shaking him -- no, not shaking him. Shiro’s hands were shaking, that was what it was. His whole body was shaking, he -- he gulped a breath, and said, “I’m straight. I don’t -- I don’t know what you’re thinking, or why. But I’m _not_. I was just -- just curious. I’d heard about him, is all. I --”

“-- okay,” Isaac said.

Shiro stared. They were close enough, still, that Shiro could feel Isaac’s breath on his face. He was a little taller, but Isaac had enough mass on him that he could probably punch Shiro in the gut and walk away from this right now, but he was just... waiting. Standing there, so close, saying _okay_ , like anything was _okay_ , like anything had ever been _okay_ since the first moment Shiro had woken up with ink staining him, just to learn that not only was he _wrong_ because he had a soulmate, but because he _liked boys, too_ , and --

None of it was _okay._

“What?”

Isaac shrugged, and said, “I’m sorry I said anything. If you say you’re straight, then I believe you. I won’t mention it again.”

Shiro dropped his hand; took a big, unsteady step back.

“Good,” he said. “‘Cause I -- I am. I’m straight. I _don’t_ like --”

Isaac interrupted him, nodding. “Okay. We’re good, dude. Promise. Ready to head back? I’ve still got homework I gotta do.”

Shiro stared. Then he said, tentative, “...Okay.”

Together, they headed back to the dorm like nothing at all had happened.

* * *

The amazing thing -- the unbelievable thing -- was that Isaac never did push. He never said anything again, no matter how many times they went to watch those pick-up games and all Shiro had eyes for was _Richard_ , and the way sweat made his blonde hair curl like _crazy_ , and --

Shiro went home for summer.

Home, where his mother wouldn’t stop asking Shiro if he’d met any nice girls, and wasn’t this actress pretty, and had he been confessed to, yet, and --

When he got back, he tracked Isaac down in the dorm he’d been assigned and was grateful that there wasn’t anyone else in the room when he barged in, breathless, and blurted, “ _I’m gay._ ”

Isaac looked up from the box he was unpacking. Shiro glanced down and saw a stack of magazines in Isaac’s hands, the covers depicting buxom, scantily clad women. He felt a jolt of shock -- _horror_ \-- go through him, because --

“Cool,” Isaac said, shoving the magazines casually beneath his bunk. “I’m straight. But my sister is a dyke -- her word, not mine -- and my dad is bisexual. He came out to us when he realized that Josie was having -- I dunno, issues, I guess, dealing with lesbianess, or something.” A hesitation, and then, still calm and easy, like it didn’t matter, like it was _fine_ , “I’m glad you told me. Thanks. For trusting me.”

Strangled, Shiro managed to make an affirmative noise.

“I _still_ don’t want details,” Isaac added, voice dry. “Sis broke up with Rebecca, so all summer it was Tanya _this_ and Tanya _that_. Ugh, if I hear any more half-assed poetry about the color of someone’s eyes I’m going to vomit, Shirogane. Don’t test me.”

Hesitant, Shiro managed a shaky smile. “No problem,” he said. “I -- yeah. Sure.”

* * *

It didn’t -- it didn’t _change_ anything. Not really.

Shiro still had a soulmate that he couldn’t -- wouldn’t -- tell anyone about. He was still lying, and hiding, and desperate to keep it that way. He was still _wrong_ , but at least, maybe, he wasn’t wrong for _this_.

And it was nice.

Wonderful, maybe. To have trusted someone, to have revealed a part of himself -- a secret -- that had terrified and tormented him. That had made him feel so, so lonely in the keeping of. 

“Eyes on the ball, Shirogane,” Isaac snorted, nudging him. “Or he’s going to notice.”

Startled, Shiro jerked out of his thoughts, embarrassed. He could feel the blush start in his ears, warming them, and -- 

Oh.

“Too late,” Shiro whispered, mouth dry.

Not even ten feet away, standing on the sideline with a half-drunk sports drink in hand, Richard Montgomery was staring right at Shiro, head cocked curiously. Oh, _God_. What did -- What did he --

“Isaac,” Shiro hissed, smacking at Isaac’s arm without tearing his gaze away from Richard _fucking_ Montgomery. “What do I do! What do I --”

“Hm,” said Isaac. “You could blow him a kiss? Confess? I don’t know, dude, don’t ask me.”

Shiro wailed under his breath, panicking, and --

Richard was smiling faintly at Shiro now, and Shiro was _going to die_ , he was, what the hell did he do -- how did he get out of this -- help! -- and then, thankfully, Richard turned at the sound of his name being called on the field, breaking eye contact. 

Shiro wilted all at once, collapsing against Isaac’s shoulder.

“There, there,” Isaac said, without inflection. “Keep it together.”

“I am _so, so gay_ ,” Shiro whispered, just because he could, because Isaac didn’t do anything more than snort, and say, “I’m sorry, was that _supposed_ to be a secret? Honestly, I’m amazed it took Montgomery this long to notice you mooning at him. You’re not exactly subtle.”

Shiro groaned, and buried his face in his hands to hide his smile.

Turned out that being known -- no, not _known_ , he thought; being _accepted_ \-- did feel, at least in some small part, like freedom -- thrilling, and nauseating, and so fucking, god damned meaningful.

**Author's Note:**

> someday i'll stop making edits after i post a thing, but not today!!


End file.
